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1.67m refugees in Iraq’s Kurdish region

May 25, 2016 at 11:25 am

The number of internally displaced Iraqi and Syrian refugees in Kurdistan has reached 1.67 million, a senior official in the Kurdish Directorate of Displacement and Migration (DDM) said yesterday.

DDM Director Shaker Yassin told the Anadolu Agency that 246,000 Syrians have fled their country and taken refuge in Kurdistan, most live in the province of Dohuk.

An additional 6,000 Iranian refugees who fled their country for various reasons live in Sulaymaniyah.

A large number of people were displaced when Daesh took control of Mosul, northern Iraq, in June 2014, as well as the provinces of Anbar and Salahuddin amongst others.

According to the official, there are 40 camps set up in the region’s three provinces to house those displaced people and refugees, but most people rent houses privately.

Iraq’s federal government must shoulder the responsibility for these displaced people living in the area, he stressed.